Picked this up today at Kmart, quick summary is:
First, he's surprisingly heavy. Colors are a bit bland, but we've all seen that. Arms have good movement, head as well. Torso, not so much.
Leg movement is the most disappointing, at the knee he can only move on 'click' front or back. Feet are nice, big and stable for posing.
I'm not gonna say buy him asap, but unless you really like Bumblebee, you can wait.

Got Barricade today despite his huge head, and man am I disappointed in the posability! Paint is great on him which is the reason that I didn't get BB instead, but his arms have bad poseability and they're so big that it's a real letdown. I will definitely be getting Frenzy as it will be the most movie accurate one of him and I liked him better than I thought I would.

It’s the American version of Kaiyodo’s Revoltechs but can Hasbro’s Robot Replicas out do Revoltech in the battle of highly detailed pose ability figures? Find out in this detailed review

I really enjoyed Micheal Bay’s Transformers movie. I thought it was a lot of fun and one of the main characters that I liked the most was Bumblebee. Seeing that the Concept Camaro version of him in his figure deluxe mode is hard to get at the moment, I decided to get what I thought would be the next best thing in his Robot Replica Mode. The word on the net is that these figures are supposed to be something like revoltech……Is it something like that or is it that? Well the answer is this: they are nothing like Revoltech.

LETS TALK ABOUT POSES

For starters, Revoltech is what it is. A series of revolving joints placed on a figure that will enable it to do multiple poses. Revoltech is very articulate and this is where Hasbro’s Robot Replica’s disappoint. For starters, there are no revolving joints located on Bumblebee’s elbows. The only thing you can do with Bumblbees forearm is bend it up or down. There are revolving joints in the knees but because of the Bumblebee’s calf’s, you can only bend them so far thus limiting the articulation on the legs. Not to mention the shoulders which also has some extra kibble on them which leads to limited articulation. Don’t get me wrong, the figure can be posed but the because of the kibble and the lack of revolving joints in the elbows there is only so much that you will be able to pull from it. Also the fist on Revoletch can be articulated whereas the fist on Bumblebee cannot. As for the revolving joints in his ankle those are ok. The allowed me to pull off a cool pose which you can see here:

Bumblebee is made from plastic and PVS material but he has a cheaper feel to him which the Revoltechs do not. The Robot Replicas are also larger in size compared to the Revoltechs as you can see here:

ACCESSORIES

The next thing I wanted to compare what the extra parts. I only own 2 Revoltech which are Prime and Megatron. Each one came with extra parts such as fist, hands, and weapons which can be changed out on the figure to create extra poses. Hasbro’s Robot Replicas only came with Bumblebee’s Plasma Ejection Cannon…Ejection Cannon????.......OK. This was a huge disappointment as well but I can see why. We would not want some kid to choke on it of course. There is so much that this figure could have came with such extra hands and his battle helmet that we saw in the movie which was awesome but this is where Hasbro fails and Kaiyodo succeeds.

DETAILS

Hasbro calls these things replicas which if I am correct, a replica is supposed be an exact representation of how something looks. That’s not a word for word definition but it will do. I think that Hasbro did an OK job with the feet on Bumblebee, they have a lot of detail to them and also the crotch area from which Bumblebee to leak from in the movie. The head is very detailed as well but the paint application does not look as well as Revoltech does. The paint application is so so but it does not even come close to Revoltech. They look great in pictures but as the Transformers say, things are not always what they seem...espicially when you get close to them.

FINAL COMMENTS AND GRADE

I am not going to give Hasbro an F for these figures nor will I give them an A or a B. Hasbro’s Robot Replicas contain too much kibble which limits their poses. The lack revolving joints which also limit their poses and finally, they are not as detailed as they are said to be……they are nothing like Revoltech, not even close so for all those out there, myself included….who said that Hasbro was doing the same thing as Revoltech, we were dead wrong. Here is to hoping that Revoltech will make the movie figures, at least this way we can be sure to get a better product.

Also, why are you calling the actual body armor design on BB kibble? Its not kibble that makes him unarticulated, its poor design.

Click to expand...

It is kibble to me because his parts (Kibble) are in the way. However, you do have a very good point by stating poor design. If some of those pieces has been sculpted better then maybe it would have been better articulated.

Revoltech uses Revolving joints all over and they make sure no part of the robot is the way to prevent the figure from being posed. Hasbro failed miseriably at this. Not to mention because there are no revolving joints in the hips and elbows, the thing lacks the dynamic to be posed in desirable ways. Can you imagine if Revoltech did this with Bumblebee's Battle Helmet, extra fist, and hands, and a much better looking plasma gun???

But the bottom line here is that these things dissapoint...I'd save your money and pass on them.....in fact I gave mines away to my 2 year old son after I posted the review.